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Grant-funded project will allow higher enrollment
WESTFORD — With dozens of school, district and state officials on hand, Nashoba Valley Technical High School officially broke ground on a 7,000-square-foot addition on Friday, April 12.
The major expansion and modernization project for the regional vocational school is going forward thanks to three state grants totaling $6.75 million.
Superintendent Denise Pigeon said the new wing is the highlight of the project and will allow the school to increase enrollment among district students, with prospective students currently facing a wait list and enrollment increases seen for the foreseeable future.
“Our school’s story began with 255 students in 1968,” Pigeon told the assembled crowd during the groundbreaking ceremony.
Pigeon said that the district added a wing in the 1980s before embarking on a $25 million renovation/expansion that added two wings and was completed in 2005.
“It has been my privilege to watch Nashoba Tech’s enrollment grow to 757 district students this year – the highest enrollment since the 1980s,” Pigeon said. “And next year, I think we’re going to hit 800. The demand for vocational education has never been greater.”
The project is the result of a Chapter 74 Vocational Instructional Space Facility Expansion Grant from the state. The $3.75 million grant will add a new wing to the eastern side of the campus that will create a state-of-the-art manufacturing, robotics and design training facility.
Nashoba Tech also received $2.5 million to modernize and expand instructional lab space in the Electrical Technology and Veterinary Assisting programs that will allow a 50 percent increase in enrollment in those programs.
Finally, the district received a $500,000 grant to replace outdated equipment in its Cosmetology program. The grant-funded project will additionally result in the expansion of the school’s Career Training Institute for adults.
Patrick Tutwiler, Massachusetts’ secretary of education was also in attendance.
“I want to convey how important this expansion is and the fact that it gets at what we’re trying to do in the career technical-education space and, frankly, what we’re trying to do in the high-school space in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and that is to expand more opportunities for students to get hands-on, applied learning,” Tutwiler said. “Grants like these enable students and educators to experience career technical education in modern, updated spaces that provide better tools, better materials, updated equipment and infrastructure to mirror what students are going to see when they leave here.”
Nashoba Tech actually received the grant under former Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration in January 2023, just before Baker left office.
“For me,” Tutwiler said, “the golden nugget in all of this is very simple: What is learned in the shops and classrooms, the experiences the students are having here, reflect what they’re going to experience in their next step.”
Industry partners with Nashoba Tech in putting the grant to use include Insulet Corporation in Acton, TUV Rhineland in Littleton, Keystone Precision & Engineering in Pepperell, TRAK Machine Tools in Boxborough and Red Hat in Westford, as well as the Middlesex 3 Coalition, Nashoba Valley Chamber of Commerce, North Central Chamber, Northeast Advanced Manufacturing Consortium, Mount Wachusett Community College, Middlesex Community College and four MassHire Workforce boards.
Also on hand for the groundbreaking ceremony were School Committee members and other officials from Nashoba Tech’s eight district towns – Ayer, Chelmsford, Groton, Littleton, Pepperell, Shirley, Townsend and Westford – as well as state legislators who represent the towns, representatives of Littleton-based Triumph Modular, which was selected as the builder, and several MassHire officials.
